by Kristy Marie
Outside, Aspen is setting up the waterslide lanes with Fenn. Bennett, however, isn’t helping. “Happy Birthday,” I tell him, wrapping my arms around him and giving him a squeeze.
I know he’s pissed off at Aspen, but honestly, when is he not? Rarely does Aspen do as she’s told. She’s not one to take orders. She’d rather suffer the consequences than take the advice of others. If she wants to wear the cute bikini, then by God, she’s going to wear the cute bikini. The only way she’s changing it is if Bennett rips it off her body. And he would never do that. He’s a gentleman. An angry gentleman, but still a gentleman, nonetheless.
“Thanks, Vee,” he finally returns, squeezing me back, but still glaring at Aspen.
“You know,” I say, pointing at the Von Bremen siblings who are in a standoff with each other. “Yelling at her only feeds her desire to break that promise of yours.”
Bennett’s head whips around and down at me. I shrug. “We’re best friends. She tells me almost everything.”
At Bennett’s death stare, I hurry out. “Your father will forgive you,” I assure him. “It’s okay to let him down sometimes.”
Heaven only knows I’ve experimented with that aspect of my life.
“It’s non-negotiable,” he grits out. “And something that will never be discussed again, got it?”
I hold my palms up in a defensive gesture. “Whatever you want, big guy.”
I did my best friend duty. I tried to talk some sense into Bennett, and it went exactly how I thought it would. Terrible.
“Okay,” I say, forcing a smile and taking a step away from Bennett and toward the safety of Fenn and Aspen. “I’m going to break those two up before she makes him cry.”
I’ve never seen Fenn cry. Most days, I have a hard time believing he even has a heart, but I need an excuse to get away from Bennett and his pissed-off state. It’s no way to spend his birthday, but apparently, he doesn’t care.
Approaching Aspen and Fenn, I grin and put my hands on my hips. “Are we playing kickball or mud wrestling because you moving those slides eight million times is only getting them dirty.”
Aspen snatches the vinyl slide from Fenn’s hands and grins. “Boys are as efficient as waxing with masking tape.”
I grin, just as Fenn snatches the slide back and slings it down on the ground and kicks it away from us. “And girls are petty as fuck.” He gives the slide one more farewell kick and takes a deep breath. “Stop fucking torturing him and go change, Aspen. Staying out here and ‘helping’ me is just making this party tense as fuck.”
I shrug when Aspen looks at me and rolls her eyes. Fenn is right; Aspen and Bennett arguing or not speaking makes everything and everyone around them stressed. But I get her side too. She should be able to wear what she wants to wear.
“Let’s just drop it,” I tell them. “It’s his birthday. Let’s get this all set up before people start arriving.”
The birthday comment seems to sober the siblings, and they both nod, Aspen’s gaze flicking back to Bennett, just once, before she leans down and picks up the slide and begins straightening it out.
I grab an end when Drew comes to the back door and shouts, “Vee! Your phone is buzzing.”
“Who’s Demon Douche?”
I feel my cheeks go hot.
Fuck.
I dart over and snatch the phone from Drew’s hand and smile. “Lab partner,” I lie. “A real jerk.”
Drew shrugs and goes back inside, without asking anymore questions, which is good.
Exhaling, I swipe the screen and read the text.
Demon Douche: Will they just fuck already? Even I have blue balls from watching them.
I lift my gaze just in time to see Mr. Ugly Shorts lounging on his back patio with a drink in his hand.
Me: Some of us have something called morals. You should google it sometime.
I see a grin creep onto his face. He loves getting to me.
Demon Douche: You of all people should not be surfing the morality board, Ms. I Lie On The Daily.
It’s a shot to the heart. One I deserve, but nevertheless, it still stings for all of about 2.5 seconds when I realize what he’s sitting in.
Me: That’s my chair, asshole!
This man is seriously sitting in my patio chair with me right here. The nerve!
Demon Douche: What? You’re seeing things. Pam let me borrow this—
He sends the rolling its eyes emoji.
Demon Douche: —last Sunday. Stop trying to cause neighborhood drama, Valentina.
I swear to G—My fingers fly over the keyboard.
Me: You’re the liar, Sebastian Carrington!
He eases back into my wicker chair.
Demon Douche: Sucks, doesn’t it, bro?
Don’t scream. If you scream, Fenn and Bennett will demand to know what’s going on and that can never happen.
No one can ever know what went down between Sebastian and me.
Me: I hate you.
It’s sort of the truth. I do hate him, sometimes, but this one time—never mind. Those days are over. All that matters is the here and now. Sebastian and I are enemies. I turn back to Aspen and Fenn, not able to help them at all because my damn phone dings again, and I swear on all things holy that I really do try not to read it.
Demon Douche: Knock ‘em dead, Tiger. I won’t be rooting for you.
I flip the idiot off.
Fuck being a good neighbor.
University CamFlix Competition Submission
Entry Number: 75
Sebastian and Valentina
First Interview Continued, also known as those precious few minutes I will never get back
“What exactly did Sebastian do to sabotage your video?”
Had I known the producers would be so damn nosy in these interviews, I might have negotiated with Bash-hole for a sixty-forty split instead of fifty-fifty. This is awful.
“Have you ever seen the movie, Titanic?” I ask the producer.
He nods. “Great film.”
I narrow my eyes. “Yes. It also has an iconic scene where Jack and Rose are at the bow of the ship and they are ‘flying.’”
Tom, the producer nods, and scoots to the edge of his chair, captivated by my story. “Well, you see, I was singing that song, and I might have been standing, singing with my eyes closed and my arms out wide, just as Rose did, when Sebastian stumbled upon me.”
The party is in full swing, complete with girls in way less clothing than me and Aspen, who, by the way, is now wearing Bennett’s t-shirt. She finally gave in and felt bad that she was causing him stress on his birthday. I, on the other hand, am still in my bathing suit, sans any sort of cover up. I wanted to go across the courtyard and grab something from the house, but then people started arriving and I had to help Drew with drinks.
We’re two hours in to this shindig and people are still arriving. I don’t know what Fenn did to convince the complex manager to let us have the party in the courtyard, but I’m impressed. Tony usually never allows parties of any kind. Which, let’s be realistic, Fenn and Drew violate that rule all the time, but they usually don’t do it outside. Generally, they are more discreet about it.
“Gross.” I narrow my eyes at the guy walking in with a girl I don’t know. “Who invited that weasel?”
I nudge Aspen, who seems to be cracking the plastic cup in her hand. “Huh?” She asks with a frown. I follow the path where she was looking and see a girl from my chem class talking to Bennett. Well, she isn’t talking to him, just standing close in case he wants to pass out or something.
“Malcolm,” I redirect her by pointing to the sniveling waste of space several feet from us. “Did Drew invite him?” There’s excitement in my voice as I ask this question. If there was ever a time I wanted Drew to throw someone out on their ass, now was it. No way did Drew invite Malcolm to his party.
Malcolm Desantis is like the high school bully of MyView.
I know, it’s the internet. Pretty much every
other person is a bully, but Malcolm… Malcolm is their king—a wretched and wicked ruler. If he was a character in a horror movie, I would want him to be the first victim who was gutted in the kitchen while he screamed for help in an empty house. But alas, Malcolm isn’t. He’s the psycho who you have to kill eight million times before he dies, and even that might not be enough.
Yeah, he’s that guy. And sadly, since the wars between Sebastian and me have stopped, he’s been the reigning MyView star of Havemeyer.
“Uh…maybe?” she says, still looking at the girl next to Bennett.
I huff. Aspen is useless when it comes to obtaining info. “I bet he bribed one of the baseball guys.” Drew and Fenn’s friends aren’t the best influences.
“Probably,” Aspen agrees, only half listening.
She’s upset. I can feel it. The queen bee of our group isn’t always as strong or as confident as she’d like everyone to think she is. Sometimes she’s just a girl in love with a boy that we can’t nut punch for being a loyal idiot.
“Come on,” I say, pulling her away. “Let’s go play. Kicking the guys’ asses always cheers us up.” It’s true. Nothing excites Aspen more than winning and well, nothing excites me more than being away from Malcolm and the nosy neighbor eyeing me from my own chair.
Aspen nods, and we make our way to the circle of insanity, also known as the kickball field. Think of a baseball field, but instead of dirt-lined base paths, they’re lined with vinyl slides with an inflatable kiddie pool as the base.
“You want to be on our team?” Baylor, a third baseman I recognize from Drew and Fenn’s baseball team, holds his hand out like he means for Aspen to take it and cross over to the dark side or something.
I smack it away. “Thanks, but we’ll take the other team.” The one without the baseball players with a death sentence. Had Bennett saw Baylor offer his hand to Asp, he would have been drinking his meals through a straw for the next two months.
Baylor eyes me with a look of disgust. “I wasn’t asking you,” he says with a sneer.
Really? How many times do I have to watch this rerun? Guys like him think they really hit girls like me where it hurts by insulting us with comments like we’re somehow not as hot as the woman beside us. Well, let me give all the men in the world a little tidbit. Women come in all shapes, sizes, and attitudes. Just because we don’t look like Malibu Barbie or dress like Gigi Hadid does not make us any less likely to get a man. Not only can we get a man, but we can keep that man until the mood strikes for us to let him go. I don’t need an asshole like Baylor in my panties, and I certainly don’t need him in my damn face.
I open my mouth to tell Baylor where he can take his chauvinist ass when an unfamiliar voice stops me. “I’m sad to see that black eye Jameson gave you last semester didn’t teach you a lesson, Baylor.”
“Vance!” Aspen jumps up and down and wraps her arms around the guy who is almost as tall as Drew. “I’m so glad you could make it!”
“Anything for you,” he says, placing her down gently.
Aspen nods and sends me a wink that she does not disguise at all.
“This is Vee, my best friend and roommate. She just moved in with me this year.”
Vance’s eyes are the darkest green I think I’ve ever seen. “Hi,” I say, extending my hand and proving Baylor right that I’m not much of a lady. But what else was I supposed to do? Curtsy? I think not. Vance might be tall, dark, and pretty damn fine, but a king he is not.
A deep rumbling of laughter explodes from his chest as he takes my hand, giving it a firm shake. “It’s nice to meet you, Vee. Any friend of Aspen’s is a friend of mine.”
I’m sure it is. You’ll excuse my jaded opinion. I’ve heard this line many, many times and it goes down like this: they are my friends when Aspen is around. When she isn’t around, neither are they. This includes girls, too.
But it doesn’t bother me. One, I’m new here, considering I’m just a freshman and two, I don’t have the time to maintain many friendships given my after-school activities of annoying my neighbor and keeping up my MyView videos.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I return, pulling my hand back and tucking my hair behind my ear. Why? I have no idea. I guess just feeling Sebastian’s eyes on me as he watches from my chair is making me seriously nervous. What the hell is he doing over there anyway?
I fight the urge to glance in his direction and instead give Vance my best smile. I’m sure he didn’t really care if he met me, but he’s being decent, so I will be too. Even if I would love to turn around and see what the demon next door is up to.
“Vee is also into all that, right, Vee?”
Wait, what?
“Uh…” I hesitate and wince, making Vance laugh.
“That’s alright, Valentina. You wouldn’t be the first woman I bored with my talks of conservation efforts.”
Dammit, Vee. Look at what you did. Here’s a nice guy who isn’t stealing your shit and you can’t even bother not zoning out when he speaks to you.
“Oh, no. That’s not it at all,” I apologize. “I am into conservation.” I shrug. “Well, more like recycling. I haven’t had a whole lot of time with much else, but I try to help out where I can.”
“Awesome,” Vance replies. “If you’re interested, I run the Stay Green program at Havemeyer, we’re always looking for more volunteers.”
As cute as he is and as much I love the cause, it sounds like way too much peopling for me. “Oh, wow. How often do you meet?”
Maybe I can squeeze in a session or two. I mean, it’s for a good cause, even if I have to suffer through a few conversations with people I don’t know.
“Three times a week.” Vance flashes me a boyish smile that I don’t hate. “You should come.”
At least the view would be good, right?
“Yea—”
“Valentina.”
The voice that makes me gag every time I hear it sends a cringy shiver down my spine when he says my name.
“Malcolm.” I turn and smile with a fake friendliness. “So awful to see you. Are you here to clean up?”
I look at my wrist like I have a watch. “The party won’t be over for another few hours. Maybe you should go wait across town. We’ll call you.”
Aspen chuckles next to me while Malcolm holds his stomach in a fake laugh. “It’s so nice to see you in the daylight, Valentina. I was worried you might have transferred schools in the past two months.” He snaps his fingers. “Oh wait. Let me guess? You’ve been in mourning since you and your neighborhood crush called it quits.” Malcolm pokes his bottom lip out into a fake pout that makes Vance shuffle awkwardly.
He’s not completely wrong with his assessment. Sure, I’m not Miss Social Butterfly, but I have been staying in more since my fallout with Sebastian.
“Did he break your little manly heart?”
“That’s enough,” Vance says, just as Aspen takes a threatening step directly in Malcolm’s face.
It only serves to amuse Malcolm more.
He peers around Aspen, still taunting me. “Aww. Did I hit a nerve?”
I’ve never needed anyone to stand up for me, and I especially don’t now. Malcolm doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He has no idea why Sebastian and I stopped pranking each other. “You don’t know sh—”
A hint of moonshine wafts through the air like minion droplets, introducing their leader before he arrives. I would know that smell anywhere. It took me months to get it out of my clothes after we stopped speaking.
“Valentina,” Sebastian grits out, like each syllable was painful for him to say.
“Dick,” I return without hesitation.
His glare is volleying between Vance and Malcolm, like I purposely wanted to be over here between them.
“Are you hurting these poor boys’ feelings again? We’ve talked about this. You can’t afford another restraining order.”
My smile is forced as I try to cover up the exasperated sound trying to erupt. “So ni
ce of you to walk over uninvited, Sebastian. But we’re fine here.”
I don’t need him trying to come over here and be some sort of hero.
“Unlike you, Aspen was sweet enough to invite me.”
Aspen was sweet enough to stir my ongoing pot of drama with the neighbor is what she was. She needs something to do other than meddle. I knew she had a reason for inviting Vance.
“You two are adorable,” chides Malcolm. “Too bad your fans don’t support your solo careers.” He sneers at Sebastian. “At least Vee’s video entry had substance. She doesn’t qualify to enter, but even her worst videos are better than your best ones.”
My stomach churns just as Sebastian takes a step forward, crowding Malcolm. “I’d watch your mouth if I were you.”
I know Malcolm is being a douche, but if Sebastian and I ever had an Achilles heel, it’s being nothing without the other. I figured my videos might not qualify for the contest but is Sebastian’s video really not doing well? I need to check it out. Surely Malcolm is just talking out his ass, per usual.
Vance steps between Sebastian and Malcolm and places a hand on Sebastian’s chest, playing the peacemaker. I think they know each other, but I’m not sure. “Come on, man. He isn’t worth the police report.”
I look at Sebastian’s heaving chest, his jaw working as his fists open and close by his side.
See? I told you Malcolm is hated on MyView.
Malcolm flashes me a smirk, taking a step back from Sebastian, the explosive. It’s been a while since I’ve seen him red-faced and—well, I guess it hasn’t been that long. Last time he was this enraged was with me.
“See you around, Valentina. I’ll be sure to say hi to your subscribers for you.”
I roll my eyes as Malcolm turns and leaves. He couldn’t win over my subscribers if he grew a vagina and burped rainbows. Women know a weasel when we see one.